Fashion designer and entrepreneur Marc Eckō appears to be selling a piece by KAWS, slated to hit the auction block with an estimate between $3 to $5 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately $380,000 – $640,000) as part of the Now Evening Auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on April 5.
A former graffiti artist, Eckō turned $5,000 in seed money into a billion-dollar company, as the founder and Chief Creative Officer of fashion company Ecko Unlimited in 1993 and founder of Complex magazine in 2002.
Untitled (Calvin Klein), 2000, is an earlier work by KAWS in which the artist painted over top of an existing fashion advertisement. These works demonstrate KAWS’s early commitment to clever interplay with the commercial and kitschy from which his later success grew.
In 2011, the piece was stolen from the New York building where it hung in the hallway at Complex magazine. The work was subsequently recovered and returned to Eckō, the artist confirmed. In the listing at Sotheby’s, the provenance reads, “Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner,” seemingly confirming that it is Eckō selling the work.
Eckō recently returned to Complex as a member of the board. Complex was acquired by NTWRK from Buzzfeed for $108.6 million in February.
He is also currently selling his 20,000-square-foot mansion in Bernardsville, New Jersey for $13.7 million. He bought the property in 2005 and completely renovated the 1886 property.